


The Mosaic

by Jaxkanos



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mind Meld, Other, Psychological Trauma, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 08:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14328327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaxkanos/pseuds/Jaxkanos
Summary: Bad Ending AU. After the Order of Zildrog has been dealt with, a slave who had never really escaped Korriban has some words for Theron Shan. Written as speculation prior to the release of "The Nathema Conspiracy," and as what my character WOULD have done, regardless of the canon events of "The Nathema Conspiracy."





	The Mosaic

_can you see it_

Theron Shan closed his eyes, carefully counted to three, and then opened them. 

No, it wasn't a dream.

He was standing inside a plain, unfurnished, whitewashed room. The faint smell of paint lingered in the air. Two windows facing north and east were open to the cool autumn breeze outside, too small to crawl through.

Beneath his bare feet was a swirling pattern of colorful tiles. Clay and alabaster and vibrant ink from a strange creature that lived in the coldest oceans.

“Do you remember it? We saw it together. On Alderaan, inside the reception hall of a noble house... From some long-dead alien race. A memory preserved like that lasts forever – isn't that something?”

A mosaic.

* * *

Unable to maintain eye contact with the eldritch patterns, Theron tore his gaze to the open windows. 

If he tilted his head, he could see a slice of beautifully blue sky.

A flash of warning, the carefully trained spatial awareness of the Strategic Intelligence Service, caused him to realize-

-he wasn't alone.

Standing not two meters away was his former ( _lover? partner? husband?_ ), a seemingly young man dressed in ivory-white that matched the walls. Theron recognized with painful clarity the additional faint lines at the eyes and mouth, the air of something haunted in the other man's deep brown eyes, for all that his dirty-blond hair and pale skin were otherwise as healthy as ever, never betraying the weight of all his years.

_how many years_

It couldn't have been that long. Theron remembered a great crashing and rumbling, as the space station shook, tearing itself apart under the fury of a Lord of the Sith. He remembered the shrieking klaxons, the internal systems shutting down one by one, the scream of Presbyter Erikson - _all our shuttles have been destroyed, all of the artifact's power is being SIPHONED!_ \- and then a great, shuddering, screech of tortured durasteel as the final sanctum doors were wrenched open, torn free of their moorings and triple-hermetic seals by the sheer power of the Force.

“Hello, Theron.”

Erikson didn't get half a meter away before his head exploded like a muja fruit, bloody pulp raining down on the intricate mosaic, a dedication of the zealots to their serpent god. Theron had always found images of Zildrog to be rather tastelessly macabre, and blood had not improved the facade.

The young man looked up into Theron Shan's eyes. 

Theron Shan had screamed, but it wasn't arcs of lightning, nor the familiar snap-hiss of a lightsaber that brought him to his knees.

It was an overwhelming emotional blast of so many sensations, thoughts, and memories, like an agonizing false note stretched towards infinity. A great and terrible cacophony, a mad parade of images blasting into his psyche, taking him far, far away.

He was barely aware of a pair of gloved hands, cool against his fevered skin, his burning mind, brush his forehead almost lovingly.

They were there, the wretched slave from Korriban and the unwanted by-blow of a careless Jedi, on a plummeting space station close to a world they both knew so well.

And then they were gone.

Elsewhere. 

* * *

Theron shut his eyes tight, fighting off the migraine, and opened them again.

He was still there. Still in the plain, unfurnished, whitewashed room. The Sith was still standing there, arms loose at his side, gloved palms open.

Theron mentally ran through all the possible connotations ( _torture, interrogation, forgiveness, death_ ) before trying for a smile. It came out too weakly to really pass as one.

He tried saying the other man's name, but found that he couldn't. 

It was strange. The words were there, as was the memory behind them. Whispered ( _lovingly, trustingly, stupidly_ ) into his ear, the side of his neck, into his lips as they kissed, the first time they had coupled, a frantic, rushed affair on Yavin IV. How the other man had looked him adoringly, as if the galaxy itself were of no importance compared to...

“Don't say my name, Theron.”

Theron Shan had an idea of what was going on, but what he felt next confirmed it. A rush of feelings and sensations whistled through him like the wind through an empty Killik mound, so much anger and hurt and betrayal. 

Theron licked his lips. They had suddenly gone very dry.

“We're not speaking physically, then?”

The young man jerked his head in assent, and Theron saw how he bit his lower lip, how one hand clenched into a loose fist.

“We're in my head. A space for just the two of us. The world of dreams was always my stronghold, after all. From the very beginning.”

Dream-walking. Force-walking. Sith techniques of the mind, the manipulation of ghosts and memory, and nothing pleasant about them.

_lies_

Theron was at the other man's mercy, because you couldn't fight fair in somebody else's dream – even the old Sith Emperor with his millennia of power and cunning had tried and failed – and the Sith's left hand was still clenched and Theron knew what an angry Sith meant-

_LIES_

Theron choked and spun around, blinking rapidly.

"Wait- I don't- Who's speaking-?"

A voice cut through his confusion.

“Tell the truth, Theron!”

“What?”

Theron took a step backwards. The Sith had spoken, almost shouted, his voice wavering slightly on the last note. Theron wasn't hit with pain, or even a manifestation of mental agony. Dark tendrils did not erupt from the floors and ceilings to entrap him, the room did not even shake as though an angry god held it.

Just a cry from a voice hoarser than Theron remembered, and a mute plea in the other man's eyes.

“Tell the truth. You have to. You simply have to...tell the truth.”

Theron licked his lips again. He wanted to sit down. He wanted to rush to the other man and hold him tight, whisper _I'm sorry_ over and over again, a million times, in hopes that it would be enough. He wanted-

He felt the words tumble out from his lips, pushed forth from his lungs, past a parched throat. 

Huh. Could he even _be_ thirsty in this constructed world?

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry, C- I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. It was the Order of Zildrog, I had to-”

The other man cut him off with a raised hand.

“You're sorry? You're sorry? How lovely for you. It didn't feel like an excuse in my head, that year I searched for you. It doesn't feel like one now. How fortunate, in that you're _sorry_ enough to tell me that right now, when there's nowhere to run, and all your new friends are dead.”

_disgusting DISGUSTING you disgust me I hate you how could you I hate you look me in the eye you LIAR_

Theron staggered back, the pain smashing through his mind, making a mockery of his SIS training, because it wasn't even something he could block out, could fortify against using his old mental techniques to resist. It was something that connected soul-to-soul, ravaging him, merciless, unbearable. His voice screamed out a plea.

“STOP! Please, for the love of - just stop!”

Theron felt the pain vanish as though it had never been. He saw the young man take a step back, a look of disquiet on his features.

_never never never never never never_

“I-I'm sorry for that outburst.” The other man closed his eyes, breathing out slowly. “I wanted you to know, but you don't... You can't see the mosaic.”

Theron knew Sith interrogators like the back of his hand. There was a strict formula they used. But his old lover wasn't adhering by the script. He was lashing out with no rhythm or finesse. And the mood swings...

...Theron had thought they were getting better. They _had_ been getting better, just before Umbara. The other man had held him close and whispered love and gratitude into his skin, his very mind, joined physically and empathically, a force-bond in the making.

_with you by my side, I can take on the galaxy_

Theron shook his head. His memories were fluttering around, as if they were trying to escape his banged-up box of a head.

Which meant this wasn't an 'Official Alliance Interrogation' at all, this meeting. This was something personal.

“Of course it is, you idiot.”

Theron looked up at the familiar dry tone, daring to hear some of the familiar back-and-forth sniping that had characterized their early relationship, but the Sith's next words landed like a cortosis punch to the gut.

“They're all dead, after all.”

“Who...?” Theron whispered as a reflex, but the memories were already streaming in, rushing through his mind, like he was actually there, seen through the other man's eyes...

“No.”

_yes_

“No. NO!”

“Yes.” The other man's smile was not a smile. It was a bloody gash. “They're all dead. Oggurobb and Sana-Rae and Aygo and Hylo Visz. Rusk and Lokin and Gault and Jorgan. From pilots to cleaning staff. All the personnel, from the mightiest to the smallest. Dead.”

Theron croaked out a sound of protest, his gorge rising.

“You... How could you...”

“Oh, and Lana's dead too.” The Sith's eyes held a slightly distant look in them. “She was the first to go, actually. When I found out she was in on your little deception – well, I wasn't going to risk her getting away to one of her many emergency bolt-holes. She was always rather good at getting away. Until she wasn't.”

A memory, of Lana's choked scream as her internal organs folded into themselves, blood expelling from her porcelain-doll mask of a face, crumpling limp to the floor.

“It was quick. She deserved that much, at least.”

Theron couldn't move, as the Sith placidly recited his litany of horrors.

“Kaliyo, now _Kaliyo_ got away, of course. I figured she was the one person, besides the remaining loyal members of my former Inquisitor's retinue, that deserved to live. A selfish sociopathic anarchist. With a few extra billion credits nestled safely in her accounts, who's to say what she'll do for the rest of her years? All I asked was that I was allowed to push the detonator **myself** , to watch the Alliance on Odessen go up in flames. A two kilometre crater's a good enough tombstone for that waste of an idea.”

The young man was suddenly very, very close. His breath smelled of decay, his gloved hands clenched tight in the lapels of Theron's jacket as he screamed in Theron's face.

“Isn't that what you wanted? Isn't it? TELL THE TRUTH!” 

And then he was five feet away again, looking quizzically at Theron's stricken expression. Had he even moved at all? The face, bloated and streaked with blood and pus, was a rotting nightmare. The handsome young man facing him was anything but. 

The Sith continued in a conversational tone, as if nothing had happened to disturb the quiet of their little room.

“That's what you said on Umbara, anyway. And here I thought the Alliance was your brainchild in the first place. Yours and Lana's. Rah, rah, we must resist Zakuul! Remember those days?

Always so quick to shove me in charge, even when I held no power at all, while the two of you pulled the almost-invisible strings. I certainly had, and still have, no interest in ruling the galaxy.”

Theron realized he was wearing his old jacket, the red-and-black one. How strange, that the other man would dress him thus. Or perhaps it made more sense than he wanted to admit to himself.

Theron tried to be conciliatory.

“All that death... I... Listen, that was just a cover story. I had to keep you talking on Umbara. It was completely necessary to infiltrate the Order of Zildrog, damn it! They didn't deserve to-”

The Sith cut him off.

“Oh, I think they did. And at least I _only_ levelled the Odessen base, killing what, a few hundred people? Around three hundred? Just to make sure anyone with a reasonable claim to resurrect the Eternal Alliance would be well and truly dead. While you, my love, have a higher due to be held accountable for.” And Theron saw the madness in the other man's eyes now, unveiled and staring him right in the soul. 

“Collateral damage, isn't that what you Pubs say? Collateral? Damage? Imperials simply don't care, but the Republic loves to dress things up and play pretend. I wouldn't know, other than what I plucked out of Jorgan's mind right before he was torn apart by a pack of shade stalkers. 

Messy! Where was I?

The former planetary members of the Alliance, those silly people. I had Indo give a quick address via Holonet. All territory held by the Eternal Alliance is released, to be considered the domain of whatever forces are currently holding them. The Eternal Alliance is henceforth dissolved. With the withdrawal of the Eternal Fleet back to the Zakuul system, I daresay it's a free-for-all back there between the Republic and the Empire. Last I heard, Alderaan was going through yet _another_ civil war. So many dead. How tragic.

So you see, it's like **nothing's** changed at all!”

Theron shut his eyes. He didn't know what to say. What could he possibly say, in the face of all these damning facts? That everything he and Lana and the man formerly known as Darth Occlus had built together, to bring the galaxy to an age of peace...

“Useless. Pointless. Nothing's changed. The galaxy will do as it has always done. No order could have possibly been imposed other than blatant tyranny. Weren't those your words on Umbara? All that tyranny the Eternal Alliance was doing? I suppose relief efforts and anti-terrorist movements are pretty darn terrible. As is not even putting a representative of the Alliance into their governments to dictate our wishes, how awful of us.

I feel you should know that, before we go any further. Of what you've done, or rather failed to do. After Umbara. Either way. Theron Shan, butcher of millions. An indifferent butcher, at best. But a butcher all the same. Your legacy.” 

The young man paused, looking deep into Theron's eyes. And Theron felt a wave of misery crash into him, of blood and pain and death and terror. Tears trickled from his eyes, even as he screamed in his head _it's not my fault! It's not my fault!_

“A little sample of what I've been able to taste, even from Zakuul. You should know that. Know what your actions have wrought. Now, on to the other matter. Your deception. Your betrayal.”

The other man had seemingly calmed down. But Theron felt no safer. He knew he would be arguing for his life now.

“I know what you're going to say. How could I not, connected as we are? In this time, in this place? Empathy-bonds, what a laugh. Of all the absurd things for the Force to bind us with. So I know everything.”

“If you know, then you know I only did it for you! For the sake of us! I had to protect you, I had to-”

The other man raised a finger for silence.

“I'm going to stop you right there. First of all, you're lying again.” 

Theron's mouth worked, a denial already formed on his lips, but the other man wasn't finished.

“I thought I told you, screamed at you, that you had to tell the truth? After all, I've never lied to you, ever since we've met, even after Umbara. Lana was always all for lying to you at all times, often when it didn't even make sense, but she paid for that in the end. Even up to this very moment, I've always told you nothing but the truth. I guess courtesy and reciprocation is out the window when it comes to you, huh?

Now, let's start from the very beginning of your betrayal. The Order of Zildrog is an enormous organization that can somehow field limitless opposition to me, to us, to the Eternal Alliance – and how, exactly, am I tied to the Alliance? A danger to an organization is very different than a danger to an individual. But let's not get hung up on semantics. So – giant, malicious, cultish group that somehow evades the notice of our galaxy-spanning Alliance yet possesses the power to seriously endanger me.

All right. You did it for my safety. Explain, then, how dying in a derailed train accident is at all conducive towards my safety?”

Theron wanted to protest, but his words boiled down to _it just was_ and _I couldn't risk it_ and _innocent people had to be saved_. The other man's eyes narrowed.

“Well, which is it? Did you do it to protect me in the name of a mockery of a loving relationship, or was it purely for the good of the 'innocents' of the galaxy? Which was it, Theron? Because you can't claim one and use the other to support it. Either I am a disposable asset when it comes to the lives of nebulous 'innocents' the Order of Zildrog could have menaced, or I am the _reason_ behind your betrayal and thus my safety is logically your top priority. Which is it?

You see, that's lie number one. Have you ever seen what happens to a body caught in a train crash?”

Theron had seen blunt force trauma and severe burns, and could put those together, but a wave of images crashed into his mind nonetheless. Dark indigo skies and strange, luminescent flora. The moans and cries of injured Umbarans as they desperately tried to pull themselves clear of the wreckage of the train Theron had derailed. Rescue droids unable to navigate past the tangled web of fused steel and chemical-fuelled fires of the nearly kilometre-long train. The sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh perfuming the cool night air. 

“Your stun bolt was a close thing. Lana was able to pull us clear, but what if she hadn't? I could have levitated us out with concentration, but that's extremely difficult to do in the process of a train car crumpling and shattering to pieces all around you. Fire and explosions everywhere. In hindsight, I should've been suspicious at how easily Lana immediately steered us to the windows.

If her body hadn't recovered at the right time, her force shield wasn't strong enough, or a miscalculation on the power level of your stun gun, and I'd be a bloody smear on the ground. Or worse, crippled like those Umbarans, trapped beneath burning wreckage, my bones shattered beyond repair, left to burn alive. Those screams...can you hear them?”

And Theron could, because the other man had opened his mind once again, and was pouring in a torrential downpour of three-dimensional lights and sounds.

Horror: distilled, decanted and streamed **live** right into Theron's besieged mind.

“And you say you love me.” 

The Sith paused, rubbing his right index finger back and forth. He wryly smiled at Theron, taking off glove and rolling up his sleeve to reveal a hideous hypertrophic burn scar, extending from palm to elbow.

“I didn't escape completely unscathed, by the way. All that train fuel splashing around, you know? And my reflexes – well, that drug you slipped in my rations on the shuttle to Umbara did its work. I couldn't concentrate enough to use my powers with any of my usual finesse – otherwise, I would have just pinned you to the wall and ripped out the force field emitters the moment you gloated like an absurd pantomime villain about your treachery. 

Alas, I could barely keep myself standing upright. And certainly no Force healing for me for those long, agonizing hours Lana and I camped out in the Umbaran wilds, waiting for my body to expel the drug. At least I didn't die slowly in agonizing pain from some alien infection.

You really did plan for everything. Aren't you proud?”

“I... I didn't...”

“You poisoned me. You nearly had me burned to death. You didn't trust me with the truth – _you lied._ And now we come to second part of why we're here, as why your lying was utterly stupid and pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Feel free to shout at me all you like, or blubber out denials, or do whatever you think will absolve your sins, but answer me this. The Order of Zildrog is a menace. You, Theron Shan, must dashingly infiltrate the organization, find their weak spots, beam it back to the Alliance, and so on and so forth. The day is saved.

Only, answer me this. This wicked organization must be taken down, right? So why help them with the star-map on Copero in the first place? Without the map, they would have been bumbling along for quite some time yet. A simple tip-off to the Chiss authorities would have collected quite a lot of valuable information, and it becomes the Ascendency's problem to deal with. Do you think the Chiss are criminally inept? Or better yet, please tell me who the 'cavalry' was in your scenario?”

“The...what?”

“The cavalry! You know, the force that's going to save the day. You know what I'm talking about. You've infiltrated and snitched on the Order of Zildrog, but who, who Theron Shan, is going to be doing the dirty work? Who would have been down in the trenches, doing all the grunt work, first at the head of the army come to destroy the Order once and for all, the one at the forefront of all the action, the one who would face and take down the evil mastermind and his hideously powerful creation at the end of the story, who is going to be getting shot at and blown up _regardless_ of your best laid plans, because he's always what you idiots throw at the problem to solve it? Because that's what **always happens?**

That's right. Me. It was always going to be me.

I've told you all this. Do you remember, when we shared stories and our experiences together? When I was facing down Sith lords, the Dread Masters, the Terror from Beyond, the greatest Rakatan warlord of the last Age, psychotic cyborg Hutts, entire criminal syndicates, three power-mad Emperors with abilities that would make mincemeat out your big scary serpent god?

You knew I've done all this. Fought all those monsters, with the love and help of my friends, my allies, people I loved, and loved me in return. You knew that in the end, you'd call me in against the monsters.

And yet.

And yet.

The man who claimed to have loved me first and foremost, the man I swore a vow to love and cherish, and had the same vow sworn back to me, couldn't even trust me that much. Who played with my life like a child's paper doll-”

“No, that's wrong-!”

“-like a NOTHING, like a tool to be jerked this way and that across the galaxy. I suppose I should be _grateful_ you had enough faith in me to escape the train on Umbara. Just not enough faith to share what you knew about the Order – enough to get in visual contact with them! - and send me to kill the monsters at the end of the story. Like I always do. 

Not enough faith to spare me the agony, the rage and pain, of thinking the only man I've ever opened my heart to hated me enough to kill me, like all the great and good I had raised in his name was _tainted_ just by association. 

Not enough faith to share the crucial information I could've worked with – share something _any other couple_ in this gods-damned galaxy would have shared with each other.

Except you. Why did I have to suffer, Theron? 

Do you hate me that much?

Well, I did end up killing them all, like everything else I've been thrown at by my betters. I found their leaders, I killed them all, killed their stupid 'Zildrog Reborn,' and sent their very space station crashing to the ground. They're all dead. No more Zildrog. Honestly, after the Dread Council, everything else kind of fails to terrify, you know?”

Theron's fists were clenched. His tone came out pleading as he said, “Please, I never meant for it to turn out this way. Please. I never... 

I never...”

“You never what? Theron...”

Occlus sighed and rubbed his remaining gloved hand across his brow.

“Look, what you did to me – do you know what you were saying to me? All that time. Cursing me out as a blight on the galaxy when all I did was what you wanted ever since Yavin, playing with my emotions, playing with my very life...

...It was like you were saying, 'you don't deserve it.' Don't deserve to be trusted, don't deserve to be loved, don't deserve to be kept in the loop. And that's a message I've had burned into me ever since Korriban.

Theron, a slave _never_ deserves anything. I thought I had escaped, pulled myself out of the abyss while your Republic lets me and millions like me rot in the slave pens for the sake of your precious Treaty. But the joke's on me, right? I guess I was a fool to expect differently from you.”

Theron struggled free – when had he been bound? - and shouted in denial.

“No, that's not-! I'm sorry!”

Occlus shook his head.

“No, Theron. You're _sorry?_ You're only _sorry_ because I'm literally **browbeating** you into it! We're so deep in your mind, do you think you can still lie to me? Or lie to yourself?”

_lies lies lies lies_

“Because deep down, you believe I'm just another Sith. Just another crazy Sith. Only living for the pain of other people. 

Isn't that right?"

_monster slave you'll suffer and die like the rest monster_

"'He'll never understand that what I did was for the greater good, that it was necessary, that if only he could discard his emotions he'd see I was right in what I did. Crazy Sith. It's the dark side. Just like a Sith. That's why he's hurting me.'

Sound familiar? Because that's what you believe, right there in your heart. And I never really needed to interrogate you, because that's been staring me in the face ever since we've started talking. Like a gold coin in a puddle of mud.”

“No! You're wrong, I don't-!”

“Yes.”

“NO!”

_yes_

Occlus was no longer moving his lips. In fact, his very body seemed to be fading away. Theron shouted and lunged for him, but his feet tripped over a raised tile in the mosaic, that _damned_ mosaic. He reached out, fingers scrabbling, trying to grasp the other man, to weep into his soul of how things had somehow gone so very wrong.

He couldn't catch the last vestige of Occlus. But he could hear his last thought.

His last promise.

_I'm not going to hurt you, Theron. I'm just going to...remove myself from you. You'll have quite a lot of time to think about things in this room. Nothing but peace and quiet. Jedi are meditative creatures by nature, aren't they? Perhaps this will even feel somewhat familiar..._

Theron screamed a name. But he was already alone.

* * *

Occlus shuddered as he broke the mental link. The glowing holocron winked back at him, the spectral red light indicating a caged essence within. 

He was back on Zakuul. Seated on a sofa, alone in the Imperial Apartments of the Spire.

He sighed and turned to the matte-black diagnostic drone hovering beside him. Vitiate's vault on Nathema had held all the manner of interesting things.

“You know, when I first discovered this holocron, it had the spirit of Lord Dramath in it. I was honestly puzzled. I wondered, both to myself and out loud to Lana, of how somebody could come to _hate_ a person that much. She didn't have an answer for me. I guess nobody does, until they feel it.”

The drone said nothing. Vitiate hadn't been an individual driven to make conversation with droids. Very business-like, all his creations. He rapped a knuckle against the glowing artifact.

“What's the status?”

The drone replied in a lifeless monotone.

“Stable, although sensors detect increasing agitation and repeated mental stimulus for adrenal gland production. Without any gland to receive the signals, such commands merely enter a feedback loop. Given the current readings, this unit can extrapolate a model and time estimate.”

“Do so.”

“Subject in isolation will began experiencing mild psychosis at the end of a week's equivalent time. Projected total mental collapse within half a year. Warning. Subject's unspecified SIS mental conditioning may adversely affect projections.”

“That's fine. I don't really want him to lose his sanity, after all.”

The drone didn't respond. 

It hadn't, not for the last decade.

Theron never changed. 

He wasn't very coherent these days. 

But then again, neither was Occlus.

“I just want him to...feel remorse. That's all. Because deep down, he doesn't. He's convinced he's in the right, that the Order of Zildrog really would have taken over the galaxy if he had simply done what any other partner would have done. Had he treated me like any other person in the galaxy would have – to trust their partner implicitly. 

I've tasted so many memories, I know what the truth is. So much love, so much trust, so much faith, all those wonderful people I've met over the years. So beautiful. Doc and his Jedi. Torian and his Hunter. Even the Agent and her Ambassador. 

That's what love is.

The most beautiful mosaic there is.

When I left Korriban, it was like drowning? Or something like that. So much color and light. So much sensation, absorbed into my mind. All those perfect, precious memories. So different from what I had known on Korriban.

The way things ought to be. The life I _should_ have had, that was stolen from me by the Sith.

I just want him to know that, see? That everything could have turned out right if he had just loved me enough.

Remorse, drone. Remorse. Do you know what that word means?

Maybe he never will. Maybe he's simply written that way. The same way Ashara never stopped talking about how I was really a paragon of the light side of the Force, or how Private Schor was always being complained about by that one Alliance soldier. They just kept on repeating themselves, you know? Like _they_ were the ones who were crazy.”

Silence. Or perhaps the drone had ceased functioning centuries ago. Was there still a city outside the former Imperial Apartments, where a nameless horror lurked within? Were there still people living on Zakuul, or just an endless dream of captured memories, as a being that was once a slave on Korriban obsessively tried to relive the one time he deemed his life was happy?

Occlus sighed, looking down at his still-smooth left hand, seeing his still-youthful face staring back at him in the red reflection of the holocron.

No matter. Love meant forgiveness. That's what Theron's memories said. That's what the only man he had ever loved believed.

And so Occlus would sit here and wait, buried deep within the Spire, for years or decades or centuries or millennia, until Theron Shan loved him as he ought to.

Or until the very Spire sank into the eternal mire of Zakuul, the mud and vines grew over once glittering streets and buildings, and eventually the sun of the Zakuul system would go prematurely nova, destroying the the entire system in a flash of solar fire and leaving not a trace that a civilization once existed there, a few years before an ambitious young Senator from Naboo would begin perusing the forgotten corners of the galaxy for Sith secrets.

Whichever came first.

**Author's Note:**

> Written because I don't believe for a moment that any sane, rational person would act in the way Theron Shan did concerning "Crisis on Umbara" and all the story lines after that. With the 5.9 update coming up soon to wrap up the story arc, I don't think Bioware is capable or even desirous of writing any sort of satisfying ending to this mess, simply because it is **impossible** to write any sort of satisfying conclusion to a complete derailment of character.
> 
> So I wrote this. Just to get some things off my chest, and have my "main" character, who did romance Theron, say some things that Bioware will never allow you to say. Please tell me I'm not the only one who noticed that the most recent story expansion on Copero had your character, if raising an objection to essentially stupidly indebting themselves to the Chiss and taking the most tedious one-man route to attempt to capture Theron, is quickly overruled by the writer's mouthpiece, er, Lana, into saying there's no time for argument.
> 
>  _And then that point is literally never brought up again._ Your character in SWTOR has become nothing more than a puppet yanked from one zone to the next, fighting the same "but-thou-must" hordes of enemies, with not a single thought spared for anything other than the gleaming railroad tracks laid before you.
> 
> If this is indicative of the future of SWTOR's story...then you already know how the Theron story will end. One, he'll die, killed by the bloodthirsty. The game will probably shriek out some patented Williams-esque violins to tell you that you're a _Mean Person._ Oh, well. Two, all is forgiven. Your character will grin like a loon and completely gloss over the emotional manipulation, murder attempts, blatant counter-productiveness (and if your relationship can be thrown to the wolves in the name of TWISTS, so can Theron's ability to think past a pre-school level) and all that rubbish. Welcome back, Theron! We wuv you _soooooo much_ , which is entirely in keeping with the pathetic way the game has you air your lovelorn "lightside" pleas live on the galactic Holonet after Umbara for the amusement of the public. Three, banishment/imprisonment. Go away, Theron. He'll probably give you a disappointed look, and Lana will chirp in something with the word "pragmatic" in it, ecstatic that she will never have to share your character with anyone else ever again, and the violins will shriek once more.
> 
> Either way, he's out of the story. Theron Shan pretty much died with "Crisis on Umbara," because like Quinn, he'll either be killed or essentially written out of the plot. Remember all the lackluster reunions we've had with "lost" companions so far? Theron will not be an exception to SWTOR's way of dealing with "choices matter" companions.
> 
> I was interested in writing from the mentality of someone who lived as a slave under the Sith (and we all know the Sith _never_ play nice with their toys) who suddenly got dumped with a truckload of power and abruptly thrust into the viper's nest of Sith infighting and power-plays. Although there's nothing stopping you from playing your Inquisitor as the glorious snarky badass they ought to be, it's entirely possible that an Inquisitor might never fully adjust. In some cases, they might always be severely damaged in one or two essential ways, not entirely visible to the naked eye.
> 
> This Inquisitor's physical immortality comes from the Force-walking ritual, where the ghosts tell you their power actively prevents death, and from the Inquisitor side-quest on Rishi, which further explores the theme. Being that Vitiate had to actively consume worlds to maintain his immortality for millennia, I'm having my Inquisitor play by the same rules.
> 
> With a twist, taking in account his focus on the mental aspect of the dark side. Madness is a domain of the Sith, after all, and a legitimate class specialization.
> 
> "Presbyter Erikson" is a made up member of the Order of Zildrog. I gave him a title to match the religious theme going with the Heralds, but who knows what Bioware will do with ranks/titles of the enemy faction in the expansion. 
> 
> Finally, Lana being in on Theron's deception is just a guess on my part, but it makes sense. And the Inquisitor being poisoned by Theron beforehand on Umbara is the only reason I can think of to explain why anyone with telekinesis at their beck and call just stands there like an idiot while he monologues on the train. Characters who romanced Theron or lightsiders would just pin him to the side. Darksiders and characters who detest Theron would pulp him immediately. Hell, the Sith Warrior literally grabs Theron by the throat the moment the deception is revealed, and then lets him go for some...reason. Oh, Bioware.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading.


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